If Mahoning County ends up voting 25 percent of its registered voters early and another 25 percent stay home, that means only 50 percent of registered voters will cast ballots at polling locations Tuesday.

In Trumbull, as of Friday, there were 25,504 early voters compared with 25,012 for all of 2008, and in Columbiana, there were 8,337 early voters compared with 7,394 for all of 2008.

That’s about 17 percent of all registered voters in Trumbull and 12 percent in Columbiana.

Pallante and Booth said early voting doesn’t increase turnout; it spreads it out over a longer period of time compared with having one day to vote.